


i wanna fly, come alive, watch me shine

by juliejatpfan (anxiousrainbows)



Series: Sunset Curve: Music's Great "What If?" [4]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex Mercer Comes Out (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex's Parents Suck, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon, You'll see what I mean, but the band makes it better with the power of music, mentioned Alex Mercer/Luke Patterson - Freeform, mentioned Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Reggie Peters - Freeform, mentioned Past Julie Molina/Flynn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousrainbows/pseuds/juliejatpfan
Summary: when alex is forced out of the closet after his parents find his journal, he's left knowing his family will never love him again. but after he and the boys start writing Finally Free, he realizes that this is the only family he'll ever need.+julie learns just how queer the members of Sunset Curve really are
Series: Sunset Curve: Music's Great "What If?" [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041382
Comments: 5
Kudos: 90





	i wanna fly, come alive, watch me shine

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter features extra scenes for two reasons:  
> 1) i wanted to write the missing scenes where julie learns finally free and rejoins the band  
> 2) this is my favorite song of the whole show, so i wanted to give it something special

**_January 15, 1995_ **

Alex locked the door behind him when he got home from school, only to see his parents sitting at the table reading.

"So, you want to explain this?"

His dad slammed his journal/songbook on the table. _I thought I hid that._ That journal is where his deepest darkest secrets were.

"It's my journal, you know, where I write down my thoughts to get them out of my head when I can't go practice on my drums. That's where my songs go when I write them, though Luke writes most of our songs," Alex said. "Why, did you read it? Because if you did, huge invasion of privacy."

"Not all of it, you got home before I could read most of it. I wanted to ask you about this song though," Alex's dad said, opening the book to the page he wanted.

_Hearts on fire_

_We're no liars, so we say what we wanna say_

_I'm awakened, no more faking_

_So we push all our fears away_

"What's it about?" his mom asked.

Alex saw his chance and decided to take it. _Now or never, I guess._

"I'm gay. That's what it's about. I wrote that after I came out to the guys."

His dad looked angrier than when he found out his little sister had torn a page out of her Bible for an art project. "You're _what_?"

"Gay. I like guys, not girls. At least not in the 'I want to kiss you behind the bleachers' kind of way. But girls as friends are pretty cool—"

"You're a sodomite!" his mother said.

"No, I live in California in the 90s, not Israel in whatever BC." Alex's anxiety was starting to pick up.

"You're a sinner!" his father said.

"Dad, everybody sins, that's like, the whole point of Jesus coming to Earth—"

His father pinned him up against the wall, holding him by his throat.

"You listen here, young man. This behavior will not be allowed under my roof. So, either you can forget whatever feelings you have that make you feel this way, or you can leave."

He let go and Alex dropped to the floor. Alex got up and grabbed the journal from the table, limping slightly from the pain in his hip.

Once he got to his room, Alex opened back up to the song and added two more lyrics.

_Don't know if I'll make it cause I'm falling under_

_Close my eyes and feel my chest beating like thunder_

**_January 17, 1995_ **

Reggie finished writing the final lyric of Bright in their "Official Sunset Curve Songbook" where they keep the final versions of all their songs, everyone's parts included. Even though Luke wrote most of their songs, he was never allowed to write in this notebook because of his infamously bad handwriting.

"Alright, let's start on something new. Anybody got any ideas?" Luke said.

"Actually, my dad reminded me of this verse I wrote a few months back, I added some more to it a couple nights ago."

Alex opened his notebook to where the beginnings of the song was, and put it on the coffee table.

"Your dad? Why was he in your songbook?" Reggie asked.

"Because he has no sense of boundaries."

"This is great, man. But is this about what I think it's about?" Luke said.

"Yeah. I wrote it after I came out to you guys. My parents was _not_ happy to discover that fact."

"You told them?" Bobby said.

"I had to, they backed me into a corner. And then he pinned me up against the wall and held me by the throat, but that's not important."

"Not important?" Luke yelled, "He could've seriously hurt you! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, nothing I haven't dealt with before. I'm more worried about what he said."

"What did they say?" Reggie asked.

"He gave me an ultimatum: be straight or find somewhere else to live."

"And what did you say?" Luke asked.

"I didn't say anything. I haven't decided yet what I'm gonna do. I either give up being happy or my sister, one of like 5 people who make me happy."

"Well, there's always room for you out here if you need it. I'll be caught dead before I let one of you sleep on the streets."

"Thanks, man."

"Hey, you wrote this song when you were happy, right?" Luke said, clearly wanting to get back to the music.

"Yeah, why?"

"Then let's make it the happiest fucking song about being proud of who you are, and when we're famous and we've come out and people support us because of it instead of in spite of it, we can release this song as the biggest middle finger to your parents and show them just how happy you are being your best gay self."

"You know what, let's do it."

 ** _FAST FOWARD_** ⏩ ⏩

**_September 29, 2020_ **

"So, are you going to ask someone to the dance?" Luke said to Julie as she shuffled through their weekend's work of songs.

"Wait, I thought she was dating Flynn! Are you not?" Reggie said.

Luke hit him in the stomach. "Dude, you can't just ask someone that. 2020 might still be like 1995 in the 'acceptance of gay people' department."

"Actually, he's not far off." Julie said from her seat at the piano. "Flynn and I dated for almost a year before my mom died. I broke it off because I wasn't in any state to be in a relationship and I didn't want to put Flynn in that kind of position. I'm so lucky she stayed by me even after that. And don't worry, there is a lot less homophobia now then there was 25 years ago."

"I wonder if Bobby ever did anything to help that," Reggie said.

"You guys knew he's not straight?"

"Jules, Bobby and I were a thing," Reggie said.

"Oh. Cool."

"Yeah, I'm somewhere on that scale too, now can we get back to picking what we're going to play? Jules, what about this old Sunset Curve song? It's called Finally Free," Luke said, passing his songbook over to Julie.

She read through the song and played the melody on the piano.

"This is great, you guys. Let's do it."

**_September 30, 2020_ **

"So, will you play at Eats and Beats with us?" Reggie said as he, Alex and Julie walked back to her house.

"Yeah."

"Yes!" Alex and Reggie cheered.

Julie pulled out her phone and pressed it to her ear. "So, do you guys still want to play Finally Free? Trevor didn't take that one, I would've recognized it."

"You guys gave her Finally Free?" Alex asked angrily.

"Don't worry, she's a friend of Dorothy, the conversation prompted Luke to give her the song," Reggie said.

"Dude! You can't just go saying that shit about people! It's not your-"

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Julie said. "First, did not know Finally Free was a gay anthem, I love it even more now. Second, since Reggie prompted the conversation, Alex, I'm bisexual. Is everybody good now?"

"Yeah. And just to get this out of the way, I'm gay," Alex said.

"Cool. You guys took 'Sunset Curve' real literally huh. Hey, at least you didn't have to worry about having a Larry situation because you already had a couple in the band."

"We had two, actually. Luke and I were together for awhile too, but we ended up deciding to be friends like two months before the Orpheum."

"And what's a Larry situation?" Reggie asked.

"It's where fans think that two people in a band are together, but like turn up the obsessiveness to 100. It's been 4 years since One Direction broke up and people are still convinced that they were together and are trying to prove it."

“Oh, that sounds like an anxiety attack waiting to happen,” Alex said.

“Yeah, One Direction fans are kind of infamous for being overzealous in their love for the band. I don’t think it’ll happen to us.”

“Good, because I have a guess of who they’d put together and it makes me want to puke thinking about it,” Reggie said.

“Wait, who?” Julie said.

“You and Luke. With those mic-sharing moments, y’all look like you just got struck with Cupid’s arrow.”

“Nah, you gotta think gayer. It’ll probably be _you_ and Luke if we’re talking mic-sharing.”

“Aw, that’s even worse!”


End file.
